‘Lou Dobbs voters' will decide '08

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs may be the most important person in the 2008 presidential election aside from the candidates themselves. The bundle of concerns that Dobbs and his audience have about globalization, trade, diminished American sovereignty and immigration will be ignored by politicians at their own peril.

The elites of the Democratic and Republican parties don’t realize the deep political vein Dobbs has struck. In fact, they tend to be quite scornful of him. Nevertheless, the presidential candidate who pursues and captures the “Lou Dobbs voter” will win the 2008 election.

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In 1980, Dobbs began his career at CNN, where he gained national prominence hosting “Moneyline.” Currently, his “Lou Dobbs Tonight” reviews the daily news while focusing on stories related to U.S. sovereignty, immigration and trade policy.

The program includes an ongoing, popular segment called “The War Against the Middle Class.”

Dobbs is denounced by conservatives as a protectionist, but this is grossly inaccurate. Reciprocity is the key to Dobbs’ thinking on trade. That is, he believes the Congress should reject agreements that give other countries the right to charge higher tariffs than the United States can for the same or similar products.

For example, on July 9, Dobbs reported that the Chinese-made Chery car will face a 2.5 percent tariff when entering America, while U.S. cars imported into China will be taxed at 25 percent.

Dobbs is also highly critical of U.S. immigration policy. It isn’t just that the lawlessness of mass illegal alien migration offends him but that Washington and Wall Street elites are allowing immigration (and trade) policies to undermine America’s own political, economic and cultural institutions.

Dobbs is an American who prefers his own nation to multinational and supranational political institutions — he is not a “globalist,” and neither are American voters.

The fact that the Beltway establishment’s full-court push for immigration amnesty was defeated twice this year by an alternative-media-led populist rebellion indicates the political power of these issues. It isn’t just about immigration.

Middle-class families are deeply concerned about the impact of globalization — i.e., nonreciprocal arrangements for open borders allowing people and goods into the U.S. — on their ability to survive economically.

The politics of the Lou Dobbs voters are still fluid, because neither party has moved to gain their support. The Democrats are too busy kowtowing to immigration interest groups as they look to import future voting blocs, and the Republicans are too beholden to big business globalists, trade ideologues and open-border libertarians.